Bubblegum Explode: Sidestory 2033
by Dominic
Summary: Ryu Thesis is about to rock New Angeles...but does he really know what he's getting into? R/R if you want more!


Ryu Thesis wasn't particularly in a good mood as he sped down the highway, almost hitting an even 120 mph. He had just moved into New Angeles, and already things were going wrong. His job position had fell through, the job being given instead to some twit related to one of the higher-ups in the company, which meant no apartment, no food, and barely enough money to last him a week. So one could only imagine how pissed he was when a street punk rode up on a 'cycle of his own and took a potshot at his motorcycle with a baseball bat, smashing out the back light. The punk, who wore a red leather looking jacket then gave Ryu a very rude, obscene gesture with his middle finger, and then sped up past him.  
  
Revving his engine and glaring from behind the visor of his helmet, Ryu sped ahead and kept up pace with the unknown cyclist, trailing behind him by only 30 feet or so. He wasn't exactly sure what he was going to do when he caught up with the guy, seeing that he himself was unarmed, and the punk had a bat, but Ryu was born agile; he'd figure out something. Preferably making him pay for the damages, or busting him skull open with his own bat. This guy had picked the wrong day to get on the bad side of Ryu Thesis.  
  
He was led weaving through cars, buses, up and down the highway streets, hitting the turns with ease. Surprisingly, the punk had managed to not let any distance close between them. What model bike did he have, anyway? It looked a lot more detailed and awesome than Ryu's. But then again, he'd had his for quite some time. He felt the urge to punch up Trevor's number on the built in phone and let him have a look at it, but he quickly shut the urge down, instead concentrating as the street punk led him into an alleyway. Ryu slowed as he saw it was a dead end, and there was no cycle to be found.  
  
"Dammit," Ryu cursed, turning his own cycle off and hopping off of it. Turning on the built in night vision on his helmet, he scanned the grungy alleyway; there was nothing major, only a dumpster, a fire escape door for the building on the left, and a whole bunch of Genom advertisements. He walked forward, past the door, planning to inspect the graffiti riddled brick wall. However, from out of nowhere came three guys, all wearing red leather jackets and skull tattoos on their left cheeks. They held a forth guy by his arms, a man in a business suit who was struggling to get away.  
  
"Nice job, Vic. You caught us one a' dem scapegoats." A red jacketed man with greasy black hair spoke.  
  
Another, with spiky dyed silver hair nodded a reply. "They always fall for it." He smirked at Ryu, and immediately Ryu knew that was the one that had smashed up his light. But he also knew that he was outnumbered a possible four-to-one, and he had little chance of winning if they were armed.  
  
"Which one of you wiseasses is gonna pay for my bike?" Ryu growled.  
  
The man with the greasy hair sneered at Ryu. "Where you goin', buddy, you ain't gonna need no crotch-rocket." And with that, he quickly drew a knife and jabbed it into the suited mans back, kicking him forward and sending him flying into Ryu, causing Ryu to lose his balance and fall backwards. His back first hitting something solid, and then giving way to air, his night vision clicking off as bright light hit his face. There was a brief moment of silence, and then there was screaming. Lots of screaming.  
  
The door. They'd sent him flying through the door.  
  
Ryu pushed the dead body off of him, his hands coming away with blood. He climbed to his feet, and was immediately welcomed to two guns being pointed at his helmeted head by two cops. AD Police. Beautiful. Surveying his surroundings, he saw that he was at a retirement party for some Sergeant Radka.  
  
"Alright buddy, hands up, nice and slowly." The one cop stated, gun trained firmly on Ryu.  
  
"Hey, hey! Easy with the guns, will 'ya fellas? I was just hired to put on a show for the Sergeant. Me and Eddy down there are part of the New Angeles Theater! Right Eddy?" Ryu waited until the two cops looked down at the dead man before bashing their heads together, grabbing both guns and taking off at an astounding speed.  
  
"Stick to your day job, boys!" Ryu yelled as he dashed past cowering onlookers, heading straight towards the open double doors that led into the street. He heard an approaching vehicle...a truck, it sounded like. If Ryu wanted to get away, he only had one chance...he only hoped that the truck had something to hang onto. Tucking the guns in his belt as he got outside, he waited until the truck was 10 feet away before dashing towards it, hopping up and grabbing the thankfully placed back handles.  
  
Ryu looked back, expecting to see open road, but instead seeing two sleek black cars with tinted windows and a sweet looking motorcycle trailing behind the truck.  
  
"Biker funeral?" Ryu wondered aloud. His question was answered as the sunroofs from both cars opened and two men in black suits came out, producing AK-47s.  
  
"Oh. Shit." Ryu drew one gun and started firing as the two men opened fire, his other hand occupied with hanging onto one of the back handles, a plan already formulating in his head. He kicked the locking mechanism up and, while firing and just barely dodging bullets, lifted the back cargo door of the truck with his foot, opening it just enough to slide in and open the door the rest of the way with his hands. Now fully in the cargo car of the truck, he stopped firing and quickly rolled backwards, hitting a deactivated Boomer.  
  
"NOW we're cookin' with gas!" Scrambling behind a row of Boomers, Ryu started firing again, aiming for the windshield of the car, his bullets ricocheting off. Bulletproof windows. Ryu gave the Boomer he was hiding behind that was ripped through with the bullets from the men's AK's a push, sending the robot rolling off of the truck and hitting one of the men with the AK's, sending him up out of the vehicle and rolling onto the road. One of the other mans AK bullets caught the very top of Ryu's helmet, grazing his head by mere centimeters. Ryu, now very pissed off, pulled out the other gun and aimed both point blank at the man, firing and catching the man in the chest, sending him slumping down into the still pursuing cars.  
  
"Wanna play that way? Fine!" Ryu yelled, positioning himself behind more Boomers and sending them all rolling towards the three vehicles, not even paying attention to what effect the ejected Boomers had on them until almost half the Boomers were off of the truck. Finally, Ryu looked back and saw that neither the cars nor the motorcycle were pursuing him. Good. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ryu sat down on an overturned Boomer, waiting for the truck to arrive to its destination.  
  
Ryu must've been on the brink of falling asleep, because the sudden jolting of the stopping truck scared him half to death. He quickly jumped to his feet, guns held ready as he hopped out of the back of the truck, sneaking over to the drivers side and jumping up onto the stepping platform, aiming at...nothing. It was one of those AI trucks. Nothing to worry about. Hopping off of the platform, Ryu looked around and realized that he was in some sort of car garage, for repairs. The place was pretty dead, showing no signs of any human activity, but then again, that made sense. Boomers did everything these days.  
  
The sounds of a distant motorcycle and a truck made Ryu narrow his eyes. No doubt whoever it was that was chasing him had called reinforcements. He had to find a place to hide, and fast. Quickly seeing an opportunity, Ryu dove for it...literally. The motorcycle and truck approached the outside of the garage and stopped. He heard the closings of car doors, but the motorcycle continued to stay on. The sound of a door opening, and the motorcycle and footsteps coming in the door.  
  
"There's the truck!" A voice shouted. "He's probably in here, sir!"  
  
"Find him," A female spoke. "And don't let him get away with any vital signs whatsoever."  
  
"Yes ma'am!" Was the reply from what sounded like two people. More footsteps were heard, and the motorcycle started to ride around the garage slowly, the sound echoing off of the walls and driving Ryu nuts. He mentally reminded himself to shoot the cyclist before hearing a clatter from above his hiding place. Ryu decided that he should make his appearance now and make a run for it. Grinning sadistically, he rolled out from under his hiding place, a car, on one of those mechanic's boards with wheels, guns trained on the black suited man who stood on the cars hood.  
  
"Welcome to McDonalds! May I take your order?" BAM, BAM! Two shots were fired, and the man was down and out.  
  
"I heard shots!" The voice was over the roar of the motorcycle.  
  
"Investigate it." The female voice replied.  
  
Ryu lifted himself from the board and, keeping himself low, quickly ran behind a pile of boxes labeled "Genom". He waited until the motorcyclist, who had a very oddly shaped helmet, found his partner lying dead on the car's hood. Then he popped out from his hiding place and whistled loudly to the cyclist. The cyclist turned around and blindly fired, the bullet just barely being stopped by Ryu's helmet visor. However, his vision was impaired as the visor cracked from the bullets impact. Ryu quickly raised his guns and fired at the motorcyclist, his sight impaired by the shattered visor. Ryu heard a dull thud, and threw off his helmet, brushing a strand of brown hair out of his eyes. Seeing his opportunity as a large garage door started to raise, he dropped the guns and quickly jumped onto the lone motorcycle, revved the engine, and sped off towards the opening, putting himself in plain view.  
"After him!" He heard the female voice call. "He's got the prototype!"  
  
"Prototype?" Ryu wondered aloud. "What the hell...?"  
  
Ryu sped out of the garage door just as another truck, like the one he had come in on, entered. He saw that it opened into a parking garage, and not exactly sure of where he was going, he simply just sped up levels. He started to breath a sigh of relief...until he saw a huge bulky man racing after him at about the speed of the motorcycle, if not faster.  
  
"A Boomer?! Shit!" Ryu cursed, pushing the cycle to it's limits and missing the turn from the parking garage onto the streets. Wonderful. Now he had to ride himself all the way up, and then be trapped. He was deathly afraid of heights; there was no way he was gonna pull an action movie stunt and jump off and hopefully land safely on a truck. No way, no how, not in a million years. So, he could either stay and be ripped apart by the Boomer, or plummet to certain doom. Both didn't seem like very entertaining alternatives. He reached the roof of the garage and skidded to a sideways stop, watching as the Boomer-man slowed to a stop on the garage.  
  
"You have no chance to survive." The man stated, it's voice obviously mechanical.  
  
"Make my time, right?" Ryu slowly started edging off of the bike, and then his hand accidentally slipped and pressed a switch. At first, he felt like his body was going to be crushed as he felt it starting to become constricted. But...he looked down, and the motorcycle wasn't there anymore. On him instead was a hardsuit. Did that switch change the motorcycle into a hardsuit? Ryu didn't have time to consider what had happened, blowing a stray strand of hair out of his face as the wind started to pick up, whipping his chocolate colored hair around.  
  
"You just gotta ask yourself one question, Boomer," Ryu smirked, using a quote from almost a hundred years ago. "Do I feel lucky? Well...do 'ya?" Ryu, trusting fully in his mecha piloting skills, hoped that this model at leaast had weaponry. On cue, a beam sabre was produced from the suits arm. Ryu raised a hand and gestured for the Boomer to come to him. "Bring it."  
  
The Boomer charged at Ryu, and all he had to do was simply sidestep, swinging the sword and catching the Boomers arm, slicing its hand off like it was butter. Ryu backflipped a few times, realizing that he had no helmet (it was probably on the man who was riding the bike before), and that the Boomer might use that to his advantage. The Boomer turned around, whatever vital fluids it had pouring out of its arm, starting to grossly rip out of its human form, revealing it's true blue boomer form, a BU-12 model from the looks of it.  
  
"Sick. Ever think about seeing a dermatologist for that?" Ryu laughed, and launched himself at the Boomer, activating the weaponry on his hand. Ryu punched the Boomers stomach, and the device exploded, putting a big, gaping hole in the Boomers midsection. "Oh yeah! God, I love those Knuckle Bombs." Ryu was caught off guard as the Boomer punched Ryu and connected with his face, sending him flying over the roof ledge. Ryu kicked in his jet boosters and came back onto the roof, sending another Knuckle Bomb into the Boomer's face, seeing as that he had landed only a foot or two away from the thing. The head exploded, and Ryu shielded himself from getting any "Boomer guts" into his face or hair. The headless Boomers body dropped to its knees, and then fell stomach first to the ground.  
  
"Heh. Too easy." Ryu smirked, and then quickly spun around as he heard clapping coming from behind him. There stood a red haired woman, clapping slowly. She was dressed in a black business suit, which consisted of a button-up top, and a black skirt. She simply stared at Ryu, and he glared back, as if daring her to make a move. Was she a Boomer, or wasn't she? It was hard to tell.  
  
"Very impressive," The woman stated, and Ryu automatically identified her voice as the same one that had ordered those guys to attack him. "Are you a mecha specialist?"  
  
Ryu's glare didn't faltered, and he replied with his arms crossed. "Something like that. Studied a few years here, practiced a few years there."  
  
"Interesting. Genom could use you." The woman replied, taking a few steps forward and extending her hand. "Setsuna Epsilon, Vice President of New Angeles Genom."  
  
Ryu refused to shake her hand. "Genom? Why the hell would Genom be chasing me?"  
  
"Because you killed the head of our mecha research division, that's why." Setsuna grinned, as if she enjoyed putting Ryu on edge.  
  
"That wasn't me!" Ryu defended. "It was some punk gangsters who-..."  
  
Setsuna placed a finger on Ryu's mouth, silencing him. As if it was a reflex, Ryu recoiled from her touch, causing the woman to smirk amusingly. "I know you didn't. But, an employee was killed. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." Setsuna hesitated a bit before continuing. "...However. I might be willing to make you an offer that you can't refuse."  
  
"Y'know, it always seems that way, but I can refuse it. That phrase is like an old movie cliché." Ryu smirked.  
  
Setsuna raised an eyebrow, and then snapped her fingers. In an instant, 5 Boomers were surrounding the two of them. Ryu recognized them as Doberman models, and his cocky smirk immediately faded. He knew now that she meant business. "So, what is this offer I 'can't refuse'?"  
  
"You join us. We need a replacement at the Genom Experimentation and Mecha Specialism department."  
  
Ryu caught on quick to the abbreviated version. "Yeah, you Genom types are a bunch of GEMS, I can tell you that."  
  
Setsuna laughed, a cold laugh that sent chills down Ryu's spine. "Your decision?"  
  
"Fine," Ryu said without hesitation. "Count me in."  
  
"Excellent." Setsuna waved the Boomers away, and they left as quickly as they had come. "Your name?"  
  
"Ryu. Ryu Thesis." He replied.  
  
"Not anymore. It's now Rei Tenshi. It's Japanese. The literal translation is 'Absolute Angel'. Rei can also mean Zero." Setsuna stated knowingly.  
  
"The Zero Angel, huh? I like it." 


End file.
